Share This Story!

Betty Ford Center merges with Hazelden Foundation

RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. -- The Betty Ford Center and the Hazelden Foundation have formally merged to become the nation's largest nonprofit addiction treatment provider. The news, announced Tuesday, comes after

RANCHO MIRAGE, Calif. -- The Betty Ford Center and the Hazelden Foundation have formally merged to become the nation's largest nonprofit addiction treatment provider.

The news, announced Tuesday, comes after several months of talks between the Rancho Mirage facility and Minnesota-based Hazelden.

The new group will be known as the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation, although the world-renowned center on Eisenhower Medical Center's campus will still be named after its co-founder, former first lady Betty Ford.

"The integration of these two industry leaders will expand our geographic reach to help more people," the board chairwomen — Susan Fox Gillis of the Hazelden Foundation and Mary Turner Pattiz of the Betty Ford Center — said in a joint statement.

"It will position us well to respond to the challenges and opportunities presented by health care reform and the rapidly changing marketplace. The merger will help us achieve scale so we're able to invest in state-of-the-art facilities and research and development."

While both treatment centers are based on Alcoholics Anonymous' 12-step program, Hazelden's reputation has grown as it expanded its brand into other states.

Ford, a Rancho Mirage resident who died in July 2011, had told The Desert Sun that she opposed the idea of national expansion.

The other board members remained divided over the idea, an internal rift that led to the ouster of Ford's daughter, Susan Ford Bales, as board chairwoman and prompted several veteran board members and key executives to leave.

The divisions also drove several key donors to revoke their financial pledges.

Tuesday's statement included Bales' first public comments since she left the board in 2010.

"I'm excited that mother's passion and vision for ensuring access to high quality treatment will be honored and expanded," said Bales, now trustee of the Elizabeth B. Ford Family Trust.

"Mother's and my focus will always be on the patients of addiction and alcoholism and their family members. She would be pleased, as am I, with the Hazelden organization and its outstanding leadership team and staff, each of whom shares our focus."

Bales could not be reached for comment Tuesday afternoon.

The Betty Ford Center board endorsed the merger Tuesday. Hazelden voted for it last week.

The deal ensures:

• The Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation, with 14 sites nationwide, will be run by Mark Mishek, Hazelden's president and chief executive officer.

Mishek told The Desert Sun the new Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation will have an annual operating budget of about $180 million and a strong focus on expanding outpatient programs, specifically across Southern California.

• The two boards will merge. Officials were mum on details about the new makeup, but it was expected to include a representative of Ford's family trust.

• Beyond the residential and outpatient services, the new organization's reach will include Hazelden's publishing house, a fully accredited graduate school for addiction studies, Betty Ford Center's educational program for medical professionals and its children's program.

Hazelden will rename its Women's Recovery Center in Minnesota in Ford's memory.

"Both organizations are iconic leaders and have remarkable strengths," Mishek said in a statement. "Combined, we will be able to do more than ever to help all those who are seeking recovery, find it and live it."

The merger marks the start of a new chapter for the Betty Ford Center, an institution that prides itself on secrecy but has suffered a number of public blows in recent years.

No member of the Ford family has served on the Betty Ford Center's board since Ford's death, a first for the treatment center that opened in 1982.

Officials have openly discussed their struggle to compete with a boom in boutique centers, whose spa-like programs also treat gambling and sex addictions.

Instead of a waiting list at the Betty Ford Center, the $40 million annual operation this summer had some empty beds.

And in July, the Betty Ford Center board abruptly announced its longtime chief executive officer, John Schwarzlose, was no longer part of daily operations.

Schwarzlose, who led the center since the beginning, was due to retire in 2014 and had planned to help a new leader take over. Instead, the board decided he would become "CEO emeritus" immediately and a transition team would take over.

That same day, two board members resigned.

Before her death, Ford herself reiterated her belief that the future of the Betty Ford Center was on its secluded 20-acre campus and not a nationwide expansion.

"What we have here is so special, you can't do it someplace else. Someone else can do it. And that's fine," Ford told in 2007, in what was her last interview.

"But there's a certain, if you talk to patients, there's a feeling of belonging to a special family when patients go through the Betty Ford Center."

The merger should be complete by the end of the year, assuming it clears the regulatory approval process.